Actually talking of good/bad dichotomy is inappropriate here, automatic updates are a tool that can be useful and comes with benefits and downsides. Firefox automatic updates is among the first things I disable when I install firefox because it caused me more issues than it solved.
Starting firefox to discover it has auto-updated itself and had broken half the extensions you rely on to make the browser usable is not nice, specially when there are no option to undo the update other than removing and reinstalling.
But when the autoupdate installed a new firefox that simply broke audio in the browser and now forces you to install something you've been actively avoiding or that is not available in this specific distro is something else.
I have a working update hygiene I'd rather deal with updates myself, thanks.
This was not an automatic update, it was an installation.
> I, for one, would rather trust the goodness of Mozilla's intentions than Google's or Microsoft's.
Me too, but when a company bases his reputation on a certain platform ("we will not spy on you, your privacy is important") and then stuff like this happens (and it's not the first time, not even this year), it shakes one's belief in their trustworthiness.